A spare, graceful Depression-era story tells of a ten-year-old in the desert befriending a man who’s also a horse. Bobby lives with her mother and older sister, who sell homemade knitting to pay for mealtime beans. Under a tree, Bobby meets Mister Boots, a thin, bedraggled man who’s spent most of his life as a horse and occasionally changes back. When Mother dies, older sister Jocelyn and Mister Boots fall in love. The sudden reappearance of their violent father (Bobby’s covered with scars from him) brings a simmering danger. The father takes Bobby on the road with his magic show because he thinks (and has thought for ten years) that Bobby’s a boy. Jocelyn and Mister Boots go along to keep an eye out. Bobby’s entranced by the magic show, but the father’s volatility erupts and nothing is safe. Emshwiller writes everything with care and truth, from Bobby’s gender musings to the nature of horses. Plainspoken and quietly mystical. (Fantasy. 9-12)
Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-05968-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
As an agent for the Supernatural Immigration Task Force, it is Frank Gallows’s job to catch ghosts on Earth and send them back to the afterlife. However, during one particularly tricky deportation, he accidentally zaps a young—living—boy. Garth Hale suddenly finds himself surrounded by mummies and goblins in a crumbling, ghastly city, with a skeleton horse and his long-departed grandfather as his only friends. Gallows comes crashing into the afterlife, as well, on a daring rescue mission. As this bumbling team tries to find a way home, they end up face to face with the evil ruler of Ghostopolis, who doesn’t look too kindly upon mortals in his city. With a cast of characters that is sometimes one too many, in a world that includes seven kingdoms of infinite zombies, this ghost-filled graphic novel could easily overwhelm, but TenNapel reins it in by deftly illustrating each essential moment and emotion. Creepy details, quick quips and a wry, deadpan (pun absolutely intended) humor are sure to delight. (Graphic fiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-21027-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
An Anglo-Indian boy finds a measure of peace in the landscape of his deceased mother’s childhood, and begins to understand the source of his compulsion to run. The summer after his mother’s death, Kendall is sent to visit his great-grandfather, Armando, a Native American who lives on top of a mesa, in Acoma, or Sky City; it’s a largely abandoned pueblo built centuries ago, overlooking the valley that lies between it and another mesa known as the Enchanted Mesa. Kendall has always been a runner, driven by some inner spirit; he learns from Armando that he is the last in a long line of Acoma runners, men who ran as part of their belief system, and who were especially revered for their bravery and stamina. The mysterious Enchanted Mesa challenges Kendall to run as he never has before, and that kindles his curiosity about his family’s past and his own destiny. He begins to understand the part of his nature that he inherited from his mother, but also realizes that he will never be accepted as a true Acoman because of the Anglo blood that is his legacy from his father. Little has composed a fine coming-of-age story; she enhances it with a lot of insight into a vanishing way of life and the need to preserve it. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 8, 1999
ISBN: 0-380-97623-4
Page Count: 147
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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